A Pause...For Fiction

(In a first-time attempt to write fiction (as compared to scribbling it in my head), I submitted a short story to this year's Commonwealth Short Story competition. If I ever had a chance to meet the judges, I would ask if my not winning had something to do with the plot OR the grammar OR the writing technique OR simply, if it did not do to enter a story whose theme touches on colonisation and British elginism into a Commonwealth competition! So I will break from tradition and include fiction in a blog that is dedicated to an apprentice-poet's poetry, and let you be the judges.)

A STORY OF ONE’S OWN

Mary M. Maina had a decision to make. Her faux Casio watch indicated that she did not have the luxury to mull over the ethics of her decision. The museum would be closing in about half an hour.

Still, she gave herself a few minutes to sift through her feelings. She was alone – and gratefully so - in the History and Antiquities section of the newly refurbished Nairobi Museum, surrounded only by poorly-restored artefacts and the pungent smell of cheap floor polish. To be without emotion is to be dead, this belief Mary held dear. So she stood still, all 5 foot 4 inches of her, and allowed the anger in her to slowly simmer and burst open like a lid on a boiling pot. When the red-hot rage finally dissipated, leaving behind only its embers, Mary let her big brown eyes travel once again to the object in front of her. There, a few inches from her pierced nose, was her entire history summarized in one grainy black and white photograph.

The caption beneath the 8x10 photograph read, ‘Field Marshal (FM) Maingi with the legendary Kimathi in Aberdare forest, 1953’. In the photo, the two warriors wore long overcoats (Kimathi’s, with its army stars on each shoulder, presently lay inside a glass case next to the said photograph) and their hair in thick dreadlocks. If one knew or cared to look closely enough, they would notice two small protrusions in the chest area of Maingi’s loose coat. A sign, if any was ever needed, that Field Marshal Muthoni Maingi was in fact a woman.

There had been no mention of Maingi in the civics books Mary had crammed in school or the numerous volumes on nationalism she devoured as an adult. No road, street, lane or panya route had ever been named after Maingi. Yet, grandiose monuments had been erected to honour her fellow freedom fighters, including those that she had bravely led at the peak of the struggle for the nation’s independence from colonial chokehold. Not surprisingly, those whose names were immortalized in the annals of the nation’s history were all male. Within these deeds lay the irrefutable truth: history would only be kind to those who wrote it.

As Mary pondered over this fact, she shifted her body to face the gallery’s door and the sign that was next to it. The sign, big and proud, informed her that the artefacts in this particular gallery – all of them originating from Kenya – were on loan to the Nairobi Museum from the Museum of Great Britain.

“Is this what you fought for? So they could…so our belongings would be loaned to us? What good is freedom if…if our heritage remains buried and unknown to us?” she suddenly barked, pointing a stubby finger at the photograph.

It was in that moment, exactly twelve minutes before closing time, that Mary realized she and FM Maingi had not been properly introduced. If they were going to live together, it was only proper that they should get acquainted.

“I’m Muthoni,” she begun the introductions and reached for the black photo frame that hang unsecured on the wall. “Mary Muthoni Maina. They named me after you and raised me on a diet of mukimo and tales of your escapades. What a pleasure to finally put a face to the name, ntaagu!”

Ntaagu. Namesake. Grandmother.

Mary silently repeated these three words as she walked slowly past the bored ticket-vendor and the unsuspecting watchman, her bulging bag slung casually over her right shoulder, into the warm embrace of Nairobi’s chaotic streets.